A veneration of Black women’s work and a celebration of survival, determination, and joy.
A Black child reflects on the resilience, vision, and hope of women in this picture book that explores a family’s history.
A Black youngster studies sepia family photographs on a table. The text refers to the “wildest dreams” of the kid’s “Mothers.” On the next page, a Black mother and child in 19th-century clothing hold flowers as they load wood into a cabin’s cast-iron stove. “I am the wish Grandma Hanna made as she labored to make her home safe and warm in the Old Dominion,” the narrator says. “I am Mama Mamie’s desire for her children to always find their way back to each other.” Light tracks multiple lineages of mothers through farming, moves into cities, and family gatherings. Each woman is represented by a flower. The struggles of raising families during slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow are implicit. Wu Wa hopes that her children will pull down “pillars of hate” (a kid points to a Confederate monument). Explanations of historical details are left to adult readers’ discretion and children’s developmental readiness. Rather than focus on hardships, Mikai’s illustrations show seven mothers in moments of communion with their families. Beautiful digital paintings contrast the warm browns of skin, wood, and earth with the bright jewel tones of cloth, flowers, and food. Finally, the child from the first page appears again, thrown into the air by the kid’s own mother in a field of symbolic flowers.
A veneration of Black women’s work and a celebration of survival, determination, and joy.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73472-634-3
Page Count: 26
Publisher: They Lived Happily Ever After
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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